Ross Jenkins scored from close range and Davis finished a runout with a dunk to make it 58-53.

Tanner Johnson ended Catholic's mini-drought with a three-pointer, but that was all the Knights would muster.

"They hit a couple shots down the stretch and we missed a few," Catholic Coach Brandon Salsman said. "We knew playing them that it's going to go down to the wire every time probably.

"They executed a little bit better than we did this time. They've got a great coach and a great team, and I wouldn't expect anything less."

The teams will meet again Feb. 8 at Lafayette.

"We hope we play them a lot more than one more time," Salsman said. "But we've got such a tough district. We've got to continue to keep our focus against other teams besides them and just keep playing together as a team and getting better. I thought we did some really good things tonight. We just, down the stretch, missed a couple shots that we normally don't miss."

"We started off slow," Denton said. "The past six games have been not crisp, not sharp. No one's overlooking our opponents; we just haven't been sharp. But I saw the old Lafayette the second half today, so things look better."

Catholic (10-6) controlled the tempo in the first half but couldn't sustain it.

"They got a little more aggressive and came out and got us," Coach Scott True said.

Catholic still led 23-19 after Caroline Lynch hit a free throw with 3:26 left in the third quarter.

But Lafayette closed the stanza by scoring 10 straight, then scored the first six of the fourth quarter to lead 35-23.

Givens scored 10 of the 16 straight points, nailing three three-pointers. Thomas had a pair of baskets and Kiara Pankins had one.

"They negated some things with their size, which I thought they would do," True said. "We didn't shoot it particularly well. They had a lot to do with that.

"We didn't get to the foul line in the second half. We had 10 free throws in the first half and we didn't shoot any until late in the fourth quarter. We had to get to the foul line against them."

Catholic finished 10 of 12 at the free-throw line, while Lafayette went 13 of 23.

Rachel Blake and Bailey Browning scored 10 points each for the Lady Knights. Catholic shot just 10 of 39 (25.6 percent) and was outrebounded 36-21. Lafayette made 14 of 39 shots (35.9 percent).